Moving On
A farewell to Appcues
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Posted on 2026-08-10
I guess I'll just start with the announcement: after 9 years at Appcues, I've been laid off. I came on as employee #21, the first dedicated backend engineering hire of then-CTO Pete Gamache. I started as a Senior Engineer, but still such a kid in many ways. I'm leaving after working up to Principal Backend Engineer, now a father of two, with a lot of experience under my belt. It's certainly a run to be proud of. I didn't think it would end like this, but the best laid plans, etc. Nine years is a hell of a lot of time to spend doing anything, let alone a single job. My time at Appcues was the longest I've ever spent at any job, and the only thing I've had in my life that's been more constant is my relationship with my wife (and even then, I only just met her a few months before I started).
Some of my brilliant coworkers have written pieces commemorating their time, and I wanted to do the same. It's hard to say goodbye; to let go of something that you've done for so long. I will most certainly carry Appcues with me for a very long time. It's a process to let go. A grieving process. I have certainly been working through the five stages and I'm writing this as an act of acceptance.
I wish Appcues the best of luck in finding success. We built a solid foundation of reliable and scalable software. We built an engineering culture that many would be envious of. When the entire internet would be down because of an incident in us-east-1, Appcues would happily hum along. Integrations would 10x our steady-state traffic to us in the span of a minute and we'd just scale up a little. It was often pleasant to just sit back and watch the operational graphs. We didn't always have that level of operational serenity, but we earned it through dedication to the process. We tended our gardens, and our efforts were rewarded with stability and efficiency. When things went wrong, we were clear-eyed about where we'd fallen short and what we could do better. We learned from our mistakes and it made us better.
Not to say it was easy, far from it. Our system stability was hard-earned. I spent many nights hacking until I was bleary-eyed, week in week out. Plenty of time on the weekends running migrations or dealing with fallout from a broken service. Engaging in Pyrrhic heroics to try to move the needle as much as I could. There were arguments, emotional arguments. Friendships ended. When you put 120% in, it takes a toll. My dad cautioned me many times about burning the candle at both ends. I'm sure I'll be learning that lesson for the rest of my life. Passion for the work is a fantastic strength, but it easily leads to frustration and burnout, if it's not managed. Towards the end of my time at Appcues I was cooked from shouldering too much. The gesturing vaguely at everything changes in my industry sure didn't help. Now, though, it's all over, and I'm trying to look back so I can look forward. There are many things I wish I could go back and do differently. Words said, choices made, avenues unexplored. Learning opportunities, I suppose; choices I'll make differently next time, maybe. It depends.
Appcues was a place of tremendous growth for me, professionally and personally. When I started at Appcues I was hungry. I wanted to make a big impact, I wanted to be a part of something great. I was lucky; I truly believe I got to do both things. The "pool of pools" idea from Mojito was my idea, and that inspired Finch which is now the de-facto HTTP client in Elixir. I've been able to contribute to many open source libraries, and even open source some neat ones of our own. I'm truly grateful for the opportunities that Appcues presented. I'm grateful to Nick, one of, if not the best manager I've ever worked with. I'm grateful to Chris, easily the best engineering leader I've worked with. I'm eternally grateful to my colleagues, past and present (all past now?), who made the work a pleasure. I'm grateful to José Valim for Elixir and Chris McCord for Phoenix. I'm grateful for the Elixir community. I hope I get to keep writing Elixir professionally!
I'm not sure what's next for me, so I'm taking a little time off. Time to recharge, tackle some home projects I've been procrastinating, spend time with my kids, and play my guitar. Maybe make some art, who knows? I need to put a little distance between my time at Appcues and whatever comes next. It's important to recharge the ✨sparkle✨ inbetween jobs. Life moves pretty fast, if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you might miss it.